XML Support in MSIE 4.x

[CR: 971008]

Press releases from the week of September 28 - October 4, 1997 (Seybold San Francisco) mentioned a demonstration of XML support in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. Questions about the nature of this "XML support" are addressed in the following collection of postings. Some priority should probably be given to the post of Andrew Layman from Microsoft Corporation.

"About com.ms.xml.parser" "The com.ms.xml.parser package contains the Microsoft. XML Parser, which is a validating XML parser written in Java. The parser checks for well-formed documents and, optionally, permits checking of the documents' validity according to the Document Type Definition (DTD). This package is encapsulated by the Document class in the com.ms.xml.om package, so you shouldn't need to use this package directly..."

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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 12:08:34 1997
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 22:29:17 -0400
From: Paul Prescod &lt;papresco@technologist.com&gt;
Subject: XML Support in IE 4.0
"Microsoft, ArborText and The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
teamed up today to show the XML support available in Internet Explorer
4.0. In a keynote demonstration, actual data from The Wall Street
Journal Interactive Edition, delivered using ArborText's ADEPT Editor
software, was shown on Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0."
Could somebody please describe what was shown. Does IE 4.0 allow the
display of XML documents?
Paul Prescod
xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 12:16:26 1997
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 13:15:23 -0400
To: Paul Prescod &lt;papresco@technologist.com&gt;
From: Jonathan Robie &lt;jwrobie@mindspring.com&gt;
Subject: Re: XML Support in IE 4.0
Cc: xml-dev &lt;xml-dev@ic.ac.uk&gt;
At 10:29 PM 10/4/97 -0400, Paul Prescod wrote:
&gt;"Microsoft, ArborText and The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
&gt;teamed up today to show the XML support available in Internet Explorer
&gt;4.0. In a keynote demonstration, actual data from The Wall Street
&gt;Journal Interactive Edition, delivered using ArborText's ADEPT Editor
&gt;software, was shown on Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0."
&gt;
&gt;Could somebody please describe what was shown. Does IE 4.0 allow the
&gt;display of XML documents?
It supports CDF, which is implemented using XML, and which is what it uses
to deliver things like The Wall Street Journal. I do not believe that it has
any support for vanilla XML.
Jonathan
***************************************************************************
Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703 http://www.poet.com
***************************************************************************
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 12:20:02 1997
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 10:14:22 -0700
To: xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
From: Tim Bray &lt;tbray@textuality.com&gt;
Subject: Re: XML Support in IE 4.0
At 10:29 PM 04/10/97 -0400, Paul Prescod wrote:
&gt;Could somebody please describe what was shown. Does IE 4.0 allow the
&gt;display of XML documents?
My understanding is that IE 4 has
1. CDF processing (it's XML)
2. a couple of XML parsers, one in C, one in Java - MSXML, for which
they'll provide source
3. an XML object model API to parsed XML docs
4. an XML Data Source Object. DSOs are things in MS's "Dynamic HTML"
implementation whereby you can drive an HTML display with a data
source on the client. SO the idea would be that you could send
some XML to the client and energize a portion of the display with
it. It should be noted that the Netscape and Microsoft
implementations of "Dynamic HTML" are violently incompatible
which is why there is a W3C DOM activity that is about to start
emitting specs giving a portable way to do the same things.
Anyhow; IE4 doesn't have direct/native XML display yet. However, Given the
fact that MS co-authored the XSL proposal, I think we can assume that the
commercial browser marketplace is hip to the idea that displaying XML
would be A Good Thing. -Tim
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 12:30:17 1997
From: Michael Edwards &lt;michaele@MICROSOFT.com&gt;
To: xml-dev &lt;xml-dev@ic.ac.uk&gt;, "'Paul Prescod'" &lt;papresco@technologist.com&gt;
Subject: RE: XML Support in IE 4.0
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:28:40 -0700
I believe the demo utilized the XML Data Source Object (DSO) that ships
with IE4. A DSO is an object that provides data which can be bound to
HTML elements on a Web page through scripting. The XML DSO is a Java
applet in the com.ms.xml.dso.XMLDSO.class (shipped with IE4, or as part
of the final Microsoft 2.0 Java SDK which will release imminently).
You can read more about this in the Internet Client SDK on MSDN Library
Online:
http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk/inetsdk/help/dhtml/databind.htm#ch_dat
abind_xml_intro
&gt; ----------
&gt; From: Paul Prescod[SMTP:papresco@technologist.com]
&gt; Reply To: Paul Prescod
&gt; Sent: Saturday, October 04, 1997 7:29 PM
&gt; To: xml-dev
&gt; Subject: XML Support in IE 4.0
&gt;
&gt; "Microsoft, ArborText and The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
&gt; teamed up today to show the XML support available in Internet Explorer
&gt; 4.0. In a keynote demonstration, actual data from The Wall Street
&gt; Journal Interactive Edition, delivered using ArborText's ADEPT Editor
&gt; software, was shown on Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0."
&gt;
&gt; Could somebody please describe what was shown. Does IE 4.0 allow the
&gt; display of XML documents?
&gt;
&gt; Paul Prescod
&gt;
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 12:42:12 1997
From: Andrew Layman &lt;andrewl@microsoft.com&gt;
To: xml-dev &lt;xml-dev@ic.ac.uk&gt;
Subject: RE: XML Support in IE 4.0
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:40:57 -0700
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1459.27)
Internet Explorer 4.0 ships with a high-performance XML parser DLL
written in C++ and a parser written in Java. Both parse any well-fromed
XML. IE4 also ships with an XML data source control (Java) which reads
XML and binds it into an HTML page. I believe that both Java items
include full source code.
The Wall Street Journal demonstration was not based on CDF but on the
Java XML parser and data source control.
--Andrew Layman
AndrewL@microsoft.com
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 12:52:28 1997
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 13:49:26 -0400
To: Andrew Layman &lt;andrewl@microsoft.com&gt;
From: Jonathan Robie &lt;jwrobie@mindspring.com&gt;
Subject: RE: XML Support in IE 4.0
Cc: xml-dev &lt;xml-dev@ic.ac.uk&gt;
Sender: owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: Jonathan Robie &lt;jwrobie@mindspring.com&gt;
Status: R
At 10:40 AM 10/6/97 -0700, Andrew Layman wrote:
&gt;Internet Explorer 4.0 ships with a high-performance XML parser DLL
&gt;written in C++ and a parser written in Java. Both parse any well-fromed
&gt;XML. IE4 also ships with an XML data source control (Java) which reads
&gt;XML and binds it into an HTML page. I believe that both Java items
&gt;include full source code.
Is there any way to display generic XML using Internet Explorer 4.0? If not,
what are the missing links?
Jonathan
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 13:00:41 1997
From: Andrew Layman &lt;andrewl@microsoft.com&gt;
To: "'Jonathan Robie'" &lt;jwrobie@mindspring.com&gt;
Cc: xml-dev &lt;xml-dev@ic.ac.uk&gt;
Subject: RE: XML Support in IE 4.0
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:57:22 -0700
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1459.27)
Sender: owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: Andrew Layman &lt;andrewl@microsoft.com&gt;
Status: R
One of the important advantages of XML is that it separates data from
display. Consequently, other than displaying the raw XML text, there may
be no single display format appropriate for a particular document.
However, one way to display XML data is to use the parser or data source
control shipping with IE4 (see
http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk/inetsdk/help/dhtml/databind.htm#ch_dat
, though you'll need IE4 to look at the samples, get it at
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/download/).
Another future possibility might be the XSL Style Sheet idea that the
W3C is working on. This is an experimental technology that appears to
have promise.
--Andrew Layman
AndrewL@microsoft.com
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Oct 6 21:56:35 1997
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 22:57:38 -0400
From: Paul Prescod &lt;papresco@technologist.com&gt;
Subject: Re: XML Support in IE 4.0
Andrew Layman wrote:
&gt;
&gt; Internet Explorer 4.0 ships with a high-performance XML parser DLL
&gt; written in C++ and a parser written in Java. Both parse any well-fromed
&gt; XML. IE4 also ships with an XML data source control (Java) which reads
&gt; XML and binds it into an HTML page. I believe that both Java items
&gt; include full source code.
That seems like neat stuff. Can authors get access to the parser error
messages to build pages that parse XML documents and validate them? I
know that your parser's a little out of date (considering how recently
the spec. has changed!) but once it is updated will this be possible? It
would be nice to have a validating parser deployed as part of a Big Two
browser.
Paul Prescod
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Tue Oct 7 15:37:35 1997
From: Andrew Layman <andrewl@microsoft.com>
To: xml-dev <xml-dev@ic.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: XML Support in IE 4.0
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 13:35:53 -0700
Sender: owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk
The two parsers had very different goals. The C++ parser was built with
performance as its main target. It does not include validation. The
Java parser is a fully validating parser and ships with source code (and
we hope to ship a new one shortly that reflects recent changes in the
specifications).
--Andrew Layman
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From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Tue Oct 7 18:55:40 1997
To: Andrew Layman &lt;andrewl@microsoft.com&gt;, xml-dev &lt;xml-dev@ic.ac.uk&gt;
Subject: RE: XML Support in IE 4.0
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 16:54:37 -0700
The Java SDK 2.0 final release is now available from
http://www.microsoft.com/java and this includes documentation of the
latest version of the Java parser that is included in IE 4.0.
In particular you will want to look at the com.ms.xml.om and
com.ms.xml.parser packages.
The Java parser throws an exception when it finds a problem and the
exception includes information that you could display to the user. We
even have a standard way of describing the error, for example, the
following is a typical error you might get:
Close tag WOOPS does not match start tag TREE
Location: file:/d:/java/msxml/foo.xml(7,25)
Context: &lt;GARDEN&gt;&lt;TREE&gt;
Location shows the file that contains the error, then the line number
then the character position on that line, so in this example it's line 7
character position 25. The Context will list all the tags from the
scope of the error out to the root of the document. In this case the
error is inside the &lt;TREE&gt; element which is inside the root &lt;GARDEN&gt;
element.
So yes, you could write an authoring tool using this approach.
...
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Extensible Markup Language (XML) describes data and structured text on the Web in a standard way. Internet Explorer 4.0 ships with an application that serves as an XML data provider. While the XML DSO is a read-only data provider, Web authors should consider using it to display hierarchical data.

To use the XML data source object, add an APPLET tag to your page, as in the following:

Since the DSO is implemented in Java, embedding it on the page requires the use of the APPLET tag. The CLASS attribute specifies the package in which the code is implemented. The URL property specifies the location of the data. The XML DSO retrieves the XML from this location, parses it, and provides the data to bound elements on the page. The data consuming elements are isolated from the details of XML.

Click the Show Me button to see a simple example that uses the XML DSO to display an XML data set in a tabular format.

The following example shows how the XML DSO can be used to bind nested tables to hierarchical XML data. The XML data contains a list of CUSTOMERS. Each customer contains a list of ORDERS. Each order contains a list of ITEMS yielding three levels of repetition bound to three nested tables.